Kids, Kids, Kids

Simon, Simon, Simon:
Why must you squeeze the entire banana, pulverize it and throw it on the floor? Why must you use every available crack and opening as a shape sorter and squish and bend things so they are forever lost within...like hiding the library cards under the rug, filling my shoes with toys and shoving food in the crack between your highchair and the table? You are so industrious when someone is taking a shower and you sprint back and forth between, oh, say, the laundry pile and the tub to try and throw whatever you can into the bathtub before someone screams for me to lock you out of the bathroom. You pull our hair, you pinch our noses, you shriek at ear-splitting decibels. Woe betide the person who lets you see their drink, their snack or their cards. You will not rest until you can taste it, eat it, bend them. Since when is a 10-month old so very coordinated? How do you come up with your focused, intense little agendas? Lucky for you that you have that soft, buttery skin, those yummy creases in your fat little thighs, that coy smile, easy laugh and playful spirit.

Jonah, Jonah, Jonah:
Why must you fill every 5 minute segment of your day with a nameable activity? What does waiting, playing on your own or slowing down feel like for you--is it really all that painful? When it's raining and the cars are honking and the street music is loud and I am lost in my own thoughts, what exactly is it that you have been saying for the past 10 minutes of nonstop talking? Doesn't it make you tired to turn everything into something that can be measured, won or lost? I know you'd like to be in charge of everything. I see your thin efforts to disguise the eye rolls as you heave a sigh and try to explain once again something that comes so easily to you--to the rest of us who haven't fully embraced your vision about The Way Things Should Be. There is much to admire in you. In the end, I'm not sure which will rise to the top of that list--your deep soul, your quick mental abilities or your desire to be helpful.

Maya, Maya, Maya:
Why can't you finish any of your little projects? I guess when you start 17 new projects a day you can't possibly finish them all. As an example of what I find lying around--a piece of paper with 9 little faces entitled "Hair Styles for African American Girls", a diorama of the front steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a painted stick with one end covered in aluminum foil, a ripped hair net knotted tightly with a rubber band, 5 ribbons with knots, 7 scraps of fabric with armholes cut into them. I know, ideas for your new little cousin's hair, fairy furniture, toys you make for Simon, vests and aprons for monkeys. Shoes you make for yourself out of my insoles and rubber bands. It makes me smile, these little signs of your creativity, and I realize that a child like myself, whose things were alphabetized and ranked by color would never have left such a trail behind her. So what can I possibly understand about what we call your ferret piles? But I love you and appreciate you more every day--you are easy and sweet and a pleasure to share time with. I realized with a pang that we are halfway through our time with you, most likely, and I cannot believe it.

So, little monkeys three. I will endure your chaos and clutter and try to refrain from running away from that monsoon of verbal tidbits raining down on me. Knowing that the daily vortex of time is nothing compared to the bigger one that swirls in denominations of years, not hours. I may blink and then it is noon, blink again and it is midnight. But I don't want to blink and then you have flown the nest...